


Another Stray

by sister_wolf



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-08-01
Updated: 2000-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-12 10:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_wolf/pseuds/sister_wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan brings another stray back to the mansion...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Stray

_Welcome to Iron Horse, Northwest Territories_ , the sign said. It didn't mention a population, but he was guessing it wasn't more than fifty people. The dirt road led directly through the town center—general store, bar, and a few weatherbeaten houses.

Logan let the motorcycle coast to a stop in front of the general store, looking it over. The two front windows had hastily nailed-up boards over them, and broken glass still littered the ground. He smelled trouble, along with a trace of blood, not fresh, probably from last night.

Leaving the bike on the sidewalk, he strode up the steps to the door of the general store. A bell tinkled and several people, locals by the look of them, turned to stare at him as he entered. Dead silence hung over the store as he walked to the counter. The elderly man behind the counter cleared his throat and inquired, "Can I help you?"

"Fifth of Yukon Jack. An' three cigars." Logan leaned on the counter and surveyed the group of townspeople. Obviously, his entrance had interrupted some sort of argument. An older woman with graying red hair was glaring daggers at a portly, middle-aged man, at the center of the group of locals. _Interestin',_ he thought. "Looks like ya had quite a party last night."

"A party! A massacre is more like it!" the matronly redhead exclaimed. She looked Logan up and down, clearly dismissing him as riff-raff, and rounded on the middle-aged man again. "Ben, you know darned well that was no bear that attacked us last night. Sam can't hardly walk, he got opened up from knee to… hip, and if Tom hadnt'a grabbed his shotgun Sam'd be dead right now. We don't need the fish and game service, we need the gosh-danged army!"

"Now, Darlene, don't go getting all hysterical on me—"

"Hysterical! You think because I'm a woman I'm hysterical!"

The argument continued anew as Logan turned back to the counter. He paid for his Jack and stogies and asked the clerk, "So what did happen last night?"

The clerk shook his head. "Danged if I know. Some sorta wild animal ripped the heck out of ol' Sam's leg as he was coming home from the bar last night. Some of the boys heard him hollering, they run out there to help, get themselves thrown all over the place—through windows," he nodded at his boarded up windows, "through doors, through walls... I've lived here all my life, I've seen bear attacks, cougar, you name it, but I han't seen nothing that could do that."

"Anybody get a good look at it?"

"Big and furry. Big teeth. That's about all anybody seen. Tom swears he hit it with his shotgun, but I think he just scared it good."

Lighting up a stogie, Logan stood for a moment outside the store, thinking, remembering Sabretooth, the mutant who had tried his best to kill Logan and a runaway kid named Rogue not too long ago. Big, furry, big teeth—yeah, that'd describe Sabretooth. He hadn't been sure that a fall from the Statue of Liberty would kill the bastard, and he wouldn't be surprised to hear the big fella had headed back up to the Canadian wilderness.

His teeth bared in a grin. _Guess I got myself some tracking to do._

*** *** ***

 _Pain._ Callie whined and licked the bloody spot on her flank. It was still oozing a little, and hurt so badly that she could hardly walk.

Flashing pictures of last night filled her mind. Her ears flattened and her tail tucked close to her belly as she remembered.

 _A human male, smelling of sour smoke and other unidentifiable odors, stumbles along a dirt road. She waits in the shadows patiently. She will kill him. She will kill all the humans. They killed her pack. They killed Mamma. Anger and sorrow crash into her heart and she springs from the shadows, knocking the human to the dirt. He shouts human-words as her teeth rip his flesh. Other humans rush from the human-den, shouting, grabbing at her, and she throws them from her, whirling, snarling, her teeth and her claws ripping their soft flesh. Then the noise comes, a sharp crack like thunder, and the pain. She is bleeding. She runs from them, toward the forest, hearing the thunder noise behind her again. She runs through the night, as long as she can, until exhaustion and pain force her to stop._

Callie whined again, wishing Mamma were here. Mamma would make everything better. She'd lick Callie with her warm, comforting tongue, and lie down next to her and keep her warm and safe. But Mamma was dead.

She couldn't help it. A quiet howl burst from her, a howl full of sorrow and pain. The twittering birds in the bush above her fell silent.

Callie rested her head on her forelegs again, waiting. Either the pain would stop and she'd get better, or she'd die. Either way, there was nothing to do but wait.

*** *** ***

Logan followed the splashes of blood, striding comfortably through the deep forest. It was good to be back in the wilderness. The smell of earth and trees, the cool, damp air, the sounds of small animals in the brush-he'd missed all that while he was working with the X-Men. He shook his head, considering the events of the past few weeks. Meeting Rogue, the scared runaway girl forever separated from human contact by her mutant power; working with the X-Men; that dickhead Cyclops, quiet, caring Storm, and beautiful Jean Grey, smart, sexy, and way too good for a drifter like him. Hell, way too young for an old bruiser like him. Admittedly, he didn't really know how old he was, but the hard features that greeted him in the mirror certainly looked somewhere around forty.

 _Focus, dammit,_ he told himself. Obsessing over Jean Grey wasn't going to get him anywhere. He saw another splash of blood, on a leaf. Dipping his finger into the blood, he brought it up for a good sniff. _Few hours old. Slowin' down from the blood loss._

He continued more cautiously. He was reasonably sure that he wasn't tracking Sabretooth. He'd know that bastard's scent in a heartbeat, and the few whiffs of scent he'd gotten didn't smell like that. It smelled more like a dog, or a wolf.

A howl rose from the forest nearby. It sounded like a wolf in pain. Did those idiots mistake a wolf for some kind of monster? But that didn't explain the broken glass. No wolf could fling a full-grown man thirty feet into a window. They just simply weren't that strong.

As he got closer to the source of the howl, he could smell the wolf. Bleeding, definitely. He'd take a look at it, see if he could help it, either bandage it up or put it out of its misery.

He pushed through a group of young pine trees into a small sheltered area under the branches of an enormous pine. A wolf lay curled up in a ball, blood staining the fur of its flank. It raised its head and gave a half-hearted growl in Logan's direction.

"Hey, I'm not gonna hurt ya," he muttered soothingly as he approached the wolf. It sniffed the air and growled weakly, then dropped its head back down on its forelegs. Logan knelt in front of the wolf and extended his hand. The wolf considered him with suspicious gray eyes, then lifted its muzzle and sniffed Logan's hand. Its pointed ears swiveled forward, no longer lying flat against its head, and it gave Logan a look of entreaty that was almost human. "Okay, wolf, let's see how bad your leg is."

*** *** ***

The answer was, not so bad that the wolf wouldn't be able to recover, but bad enough that it would need some nursing. Logan sighed, damning his urge to take care of wounded creatures. _Tough as nails, that's me, sure. Soon 's some wounded creature looks at me with big trusting eyes, it's all over, just call me Logan the mutant marshmallow._

"Don't go thinking I'm a softie, Wolf," he said to the bundle of gray fur lying next to the warmth of the wood-burning stove. It raised its head and looked at him attentively. "I'm only doing this cause I got some things to think about. I'm not gonna let your furry butt sponge offa me forever. Soon as I get my head figured out, I'm gone." The wolf whined softly and laid its head back down, continuing to watch him. Logan shook his head. Sometimes it seemed almost like the wolf could understand him. Not likely, not unless animals could mutate too. He stared at the wolf suspiciously, then laughed. Yeah, and mutant pigs could fly.

*** *** ***

Callie whined softly. He was her pack now. He couldn't leave! She watched him, wishing she understood her human better. Memories flashed through her mind.

 _She was going to die. The knowledge seeped into her slowly, as the burning pain continued in her injured leg. Her plaintive howl faded into the forest, and the birds above her began to twitter again. She was alone, and she was going to die._

Then he appeared, a human, yes, but with a strange scent, like a wolf and yet different. She growled at him weakly and he said something in the human talk, soft and low, as if he wanted to soothe her. He reached out his front paw to her, slowly, and she nervously sniffed him. He wasn't attacking her, or making the horrible thunder noise. Perhaps not all humans were bad? She lay quietly as he examined her wound, muttering to himself. Even when he put his front legs around her and lifted her as if she were a puppy, she stayed calm, trusting that this strange human would take care of her.

He'd taken her to a human den, which smelled as if it hadn't been occupied in at least a winter, and gave her water and a soft place to lie down. Actually, it seemed that he thought that the soft place was only for him, and he tried to convince her to lie on the hard ground, but she was stubborn and eventually he accepted that he would have to share his soft sleeping place. She was happy that first night, lying there with his front leg draped over her back in his sleep. When he began to stir restlessly, crying out from a nightmare, she licked his face until he calmed down.

In the morning, she'd followed him around the human den, content just to watch him. He talked to her in his human way, and she decided that she would have to learn the human speech. He was her pack now, and she had to be able to understand him.

Callie worried every time he left the human den on the evil-smelling, loud "bike." She was proud to know the right word for it, even though she growled at it every time he awakened to roaring, smoking life. He'd be gone for what seemed an eternity, while she tried to sleep on the soft "bed," stirring restlessly and burying her nose in the "pillow" to smell his scent.

Whenever he returned he'd have treats, rawhide for her and "stogies" and "Jack" for him. She'd lie with her head on his feet while he stretched out on the "chair," smoking his stogies and drinking his Jack. He'd talk to her then, and she slowly began to understand more and more of the human speech.

He called her "Wolf," which wasn't her name, but made her happy. His name was "Logan," and she treasured the knowledge of his name. He talked about the "X-Men," which she thought must have been his former pack, and about "Jean." Too much about "Jean," Callie thought, since from what he said it sounded like she already had a mate. She snarled a little as she thought about "Jean." Logan was Callie's. If this Jean bitch came sniffing around, Callie would rip her throat out.

Over all, though, she was blissfully happy. She had a pack, and a den, and a soft bed, and all the rawhide she could chew. In fact, she was so happy that she forgot to keep track of the days, or more accurately, the nights.

*** *** ***

Something woke Logan out of a deep slumber. He stayed motionless, keeping his breathing deep and even, trying to figure out what had awoken him.

He didn't hear anything out of place. It was pitch black in the cabin. New moon. The dark shape sleeping in the bed next to him shifted and whined. He put his hand down automatically to scritch Wolf behind the ears. What he felt was definitely not Wolf.

*Snikt.*

Logan's razor-sharp claws slid out from between the knuckles of his right hand as his left forearm landed across the intruder's neck. The intruder gasped, then stilled immediately as Logan's claws pressed gently against her skin.

Her skin. Yep, the intruder was definitely female, his nose informed him. His first thought was Mystique, but the intruder didn't smell a bit like the shape-shifting mutant.

He patted her down for weapons, discovering that not only was she weaponless, she was also clothesless. _What the hell?_

"I'm gonna get off the bed and turn on the lights now, darlin'. And you're gonna stay right there unless you want a set of claws in your throat. Understand?" He took the silence for agreement and carefully got off the bed, feeling for and lighting the hurricane lamp on the cabin's only table without turning his back on the woman.

The flickering light was more than adequate for his keen vision. The intruder was indeed female, short gray hair, scared gray eyes, and not a stitch of clothing on. Logan's eyes swept over the cabin, looking for the wolf, who had been sleeping next to him as usual. The wolf was nowhere to be seen.

Logan's claws snicked out again as he crossed the cabin in two steps and raised her chin with a slight pressure of his claws. "I'm only gonna ask this once, darlin'. Where the hell is the wolf?"

She gulped and tears filled her eyes. "I'm… I'm… I'm Wolf."

*** *** ***

"What the hell do you mean, you're Wolf?" Logan took a step back, staring at the woman. She was young, despite the gray hair, and her sleekly muscular body was marked by old scars on her arms and legs. _Looks like old bite scars, and no stitch marks neither._

"I'm Wolf," she repeated in her husky voice. "You rescued me." She moved to sit up, hesitated, and looked at him.

"No quick moves, darlin', or you'll be wearing these claws." She sat up and leaned to one side, showing him a half-healed gunshot wound on her right thigh.

"See? Where humans shot me." She sat quietly, watching Logan. The look in her gray eyes was so much like the wolf's, he was almost starting to believe this crazy story.

"You're telling me you're some kinda werewolf?"

"I don't know that word."

"You can change from a human to a wolf."

"Yeah."

"Then do it."

"I can't."

He started to understand why other people had always found his one-word answers so infuriating.

"Why can't you change?"

"No moon."

"But you could have changed before tonight." She nodded. He really wanted a smoke and a glass of Jack. "Why didn't you?"

"Safe. Happy with Logan." She smiled, and it was the look in her eyes as much as anything else that suddenly made him believe her. He'd seen that look before, every time he came back from the store and saw Wolf waiting for him, grinning toothily, gray eyes shining. Logan sighed, shaking his head. _Another goddamned stray._ He pulled a sweatshirt from his backpack and threw it at her.

"Here, put that on." She looked puzzled. "Put the shirt on, kid."

"Why?"

"You can't wander around the cabin naked."

Callie still didn't really understand, but Logan seemed to think it was important. She wrestled with the shirt, ending up trapped in a hopeless snarl. A sigh from across the cabin, and the light padding of his bare feet on the floor as he came to rescue her from the shirt. His face was strictly controlled and he tried to look at her as little as possible as he helped her put the shirt on. She grabbed his hand before he could back away again and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothin'." She shrank back from his rough growl. _Great, scare the hell out of her._ "Look, kid, I dunno what to do with you now. I can't exactly pet you an' give you rawhide bones now I know you're human."

"Why not? Callie's happy with Logan."

"That your name? Callie?" At her nod, he continued, "Didya grow up as a wolf?"

"Yes. Well… grew up with wolves. Couldn't always be wolf."

"Howja come to be with the wolves?"

"Dunno." She thought back to her first hazy memories. "Cold. Dark. Real cold. Mamma found me, took care'a me."

"Mamma was a wolf?"

"Yeah." Tears slid down her face. "Mamma's dead. Humans killed my pack. Couldn't help them! So I went ta kill humans. They hurt me, I ran into forest, 'n ya found me."

"Listen, kid-"

"What's 'kid'?"

"Kid. Umm, a child." At her continuing blank look, he said, "Uh, a puppy."

She shook her head decisively and growled. "Not a puppy. Not a kid."

"Yeah, you are. An' I can't take care of a kid."

"Logan doesn't hafta take care of Callie!" She hated that she couldn't change into her wolf form, couldn't show him that she was able to take care of herself. She hated being stuck in this useless, weak human body. "Callie stays with Logan. We're pack."

"Kid, I know someplace where you c'n be safe." _Dammit, Cyclops'll want his bike back. But I can't take care 'a her. Jean… Jean will take good care of her._ "We're goin' there tomorrow. No arguments."

*** *** ***

Logan bunked down on the floor, giving the girl the bed, over her protests. In the middle of the night, he woke as she climbed out of bed and snuggled down next to him. He considered making her get back into bed, but honestly, he was dead tired. And to be really honest, he missed the feeling of the wolf sleeping next to him.

*** *** ***

They were finally on the road. Finally. First there had been the argument over pants. As in, Logan demanding that Callie wear more than just a sweatshirt. She'd finally given in, after he threatened to pitch her into the icy mountain stream that flowed past the cabin. His sweats were too big for her, but at least she was dressed. Then there had been the argument over taking her to Xavier's school. He'd actually had to start up the motorcycle and start down the dirt path from the cabin before she believed that he was going to leave with or without her. Then there had been the experience of teaching her how to be a passenger on a motorcycle. It didn't help that she regarded the bike as some sort of evil creature that only Logan had power over. After teaching her how to ride without strangling him, overbalancing the bike, or holding onto a really inappropriate (not to mention sensitive) area, they were finally on their way.

 _Back to Salem Center. Back to Jean. You're too old for her, bub, and she's in love with Cyclops the one-eyed wonder. Even without him, ya wouldn't be right for her. She's a lady, and what're you? An animal. No wonder Callie likes me. Just another animal, just like the wolves she grew up with. Jean'll take good care 'a her. Better'n I could, that's for sure._

*** *** ***

Even with Cyclops' super-powered bike, riding from the cabin to Salem Center took the better part of four days. _Poor kid. She's exhausted,_ Logan thought as the bike rumbled slowly up the driveway to the Xavier School. Callie was slumped against his back, not even reacting to him slowing to a stop in front of the building. He turned the ignition off and just sat for a moment, looking up at the school. He'd never meant to be back here again so soon. And as soon as he dropped off the kid, he'd be back on his way to Canada again.

The door swung open and Jean Grey, doctor, mutant, and the woman Logan knew he could never have, stood framed in the doorway. He smiled weakly and said, "Jean. I, uh, I brought ya a new student."

*** end ***


End file.
